Sept. 2, 1993: U.S., Russia Ink Space Pact

1993: The space race officially comes to an end when the two old antagonists agree to set competition aside and cooperate in space. It has nothing to do with feeling warm and gooey inside: Both the U.S. and Russian space agencies are floundering and, as Bill Withers might say, need someone to lean on.

By the early ’90s, NASA was nearly moribund. Although largely recovered from the 1986 Challenger disaster, manned spaceflight activity was low owing to a lack of money and well-focused projects. As a result, NASA’s remaining shuttle fleet spent a lot of time idling on its collective wheels.

One of the biggest problems facing the space agency was apathy: With the moon attained and any realistic hope of interplanetary exploration billions of dollars and decades away, the American public’s ardor had cooled. The heady days of dashing astronauts and Uncle Walter broadcasting another Gemini or Apollo space shot from the Cape were clearly over.

With the return on investment less clear, the prevailing sentiment in the United States throughout much of the ’70s and ’80s was that manned spaceflight was too expensive. After the loss of the Challenger a new chorus arose: Space flight was too dangerous as well. At the time, NASA was struggling to get an American space station (to be called Freedom) into orbit, but in the face of innumerable delays and a shrinking budget, those plans were shelved.

The Russians were in even worse shape. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a crushing blow for Russian space aspirations, which had been heavily subsidized by the Communist government. With state support mostly gone and the new Russian government facing more pressing issues on Earth, the Russian Federal Space Agency, which was less than two years old in September 1993, was left to shift for itself. In an effort to keep Roskosmos (as the agency was later known) afloat, the powerful design bureaus propping it up — companies like Energia and Lavochkin — turned to the launching of commercial satellites and space tourism to help feed the kitty.

The decision was also made to keep the Mir space station operational beyond its expected lifespan. That kept cosmonauts in space and guaranteed steady work for the doughty little Soyuz and Progress space freighters that carried supplies to Mir.

But the Russians, like the Americans, lacked focus. Both agencies were drifting.

Then along came the agreement of Sept. 2, 1993. With Vice President Al Gore signing for the United States and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin for Russia, the two nations, as Paul Simon might say, married their fortunes together.

For the first time, the world’s two premier space agencies would collaborate closely. American astronauts would visit and work aboard Mir. Russian cosmonauts would fly on space shuttle missions. Soon, American engineers were working alongside their Russian colleagues at formerly secret Soviet space facilities, while Russian could be heard around Cape Canaveral. And, most significantly, the two countries worked together to revive and deploy the Freedom space station, which was renamed the International Space Station in anticipation of contributions from other spacefaring nations.

Like any relationship, the Americans and Russians have had their share of ups and downs. In the late ’90s NASA said foot-dragging by the Russians on their financial obligations to the ISS was pushing the project behind schedule. But when the Columbia space shuttle disintegrated on its re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere in early 2003, it was the Russians who took up the slack of ferrying cargo to the space station when the Americans temporarily grounded their shuttle fleet.

The fact is that the fortunes of both agencies, not to mention the future of human space exploration, are inextricably tied together. In Gene Roddenberry’s world, that’s a good thing. So let’s go with that.

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